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Mass Combat in Adventurer Conqueror King

Of the many challenges of developing a mass combat system for Adventurer Conqueror King, the greatest challenge is the one that Valamir points out on the Story Games forums: Namely that the military tactics of a society where wizards can hurl fireballs would be very different from those of the ancient or medieval world. It is easy to imagine a world where 20th century tactics developed, with magic as the equivalent of air strikes, rangers moving in loose squad-based formations, and so on. D&D as Vietnam. Such a setting, however, would deny the opportunity for the pitched battles of history and legend. Part of what first attracted me to fantasy gaming was my love for military history, with battles such as Cannae, Gaugamela, and Hastings, where lines of men clashed and died. Nevertheless, one cannot ignore the fireballs.
To create the Adventurer Conqueror King mass combat rules, Domains at War, I turned to Napoleonic Warfare as the model. Napoleonic warfare was characterized by several tactical dilemmas for commanders. The main weapons for infantry were the musket and bayonet, and for the cavalry the saber. Muskets were slow-firing, hard to aim, and confined to ranges of 50 to 100 yards. Only a massed volley could have real effect, with lines of infantry delivering rolling volleys. However, despite musket fire, charges into melee with the bayonet were a decisive tactic, as the slow rates of fire meant at most 1 or 2 volleys before the enemy could be struck, if a sufficient pace of advance to contact could be sustained.
All other things being equal, the wider an infantry formation, the slower it moves, because of the necessity to 'dress the lines' and maintain shoulder-to-shoulder stance with the man to your left and right. Linear formations of highly trained troops, such as those employed by the Prussians, could move at 75 paces per minute. French conscripts in "columns of attack" could move at 120 paces per minute. The essential argument of the day was 'column v. line' or 'firepower v. shock' - could the column advance with bayonets, or would it be turned back the fire of the musket? [Note to Napoleonic experts out there: Yes, I am oversimplifying and ignoring the argument as to whether or not the columns were intended to form line at the point of contact.] Adding to the complexity was the existence of cavalry and artillery. Fast moving saber-armed cavalry could overrun loose formations of infantry; their only chance to survive was to 'form square', a dense formation like a bayonet hedgehog. But dense formations, such as column and square, were highly susceptible to artillery, which had long range and area of effect.
This seemed to me an excellent model for a world of pitched battles that included fireball-throwing mages. I imagined the mages to be roughly the equivalent of artillery batteries in the Napoleonic era, both in terms of their numbers and their effect. Archers are the equivalent of linear 'musket' infantry, heavy foot are akin to columnar 'bayonet' infantry, and cavalry is, of course, cavalry. Mages can be kept massed (as "grand batteries") or parceled out to individual units as battalion guns. Interestingly enough, the Roman Legion is often compared to the Napoleonic armies of 1,500 years later for its tactical versatility and formations, so the tactical formations that appear in ACKS are not too dissimilar to those of the Roman maniple, either. What they do not resemble are the packed masses of phalanxes or spearmen that dominated warfare for long centuries.
Now, on to some game mechanics:

Mass combat is fought using miniatures on a tactical battlefield.

The basic unit is a "stand" measuring 1" x 3/4", with a ground scale of 1"=20 yards. A stand occupies a 60' x 40' area.

A Stand is generally 100 infantry or 25 cavalry. 100 infantry in a stand have a width of 12 files and a depth of 8 ranks. 25 cavalry in formation have a width of 6 files and a depth of 4 ranks. (A Stand might also be 25 ogres, or 12 fire giants, etc.)

Combat is resolved using the standard ACKS mechanics (hit points, attack throws, armor class, saving throws) with some math built-in to the stand's statistics to reflect troop density. An "area of effect multiplier" scales damage up where necessary to reflect the killing power of fireballs.

Charging, flanking, and morale are integrated into the game. Morale checks can cascade, resulting in entire portions of the battle line fleeing.

Characters and creatures of 4HD or higher can serve as "supporting heroes" for Stands of weaker troops. Supporting heroes fight other supporting heroes, or failing that, cleave into lesser troops. A Stand of 100 goblins might be led by an Ogre as a supporting here.

Characters and creatures of 8HD or higher can serve as "independent heroes". Independent heroes move around the battlefield without a Stand, fighting other independent heroes, joining the fight against supporting heroes, or cleaving into lesser troops.

Every spell and magic item in ACKS is supported in the mass combat system.

In understanding how ACKS mass combat plays out, the Demographics of Heroism (discussed in my earlier blog posts) are very relevant here. According to the Demographics of Heroism, 5th level characters are roughly 1 in 500. Of these, 40% will be fighters, and only 10% will be mages. Thus the number of mages capable of casting a fireball numbers only about 1 in 5,000, or 1 per 50 stands. Presumably wealthy nations would increase their "fireball power" by having their powerful mages create fireball scrolls for the lesser mages to deploy as artillery. A single fireball scroll in ACKS costs 750gp in coin plus another 750gp in rare components, or 1,500gp. 1,500gp is enough to field a force of 500 militia for a month. A single fireball can wipe out around 50 militia (20' x 20' x 3.14 area of effect / 5' x 5' troop density = 1256 / 25 ~~ 50). Thus if the Elite Mage Army fields 1 fireball and 500 militia, and the Stupid Peasants show up with 1,000 militia, the Elite Mage Army will destroy 50 militia, and then be outnumbered 950 to 500. Obviously no actual battle plays out like that, but it's useful to dumb down the math to its most basic level to illustrate what shape fantasy armies might take. In actual campaign play, the armies that evolved were a mix of heavy infantry and archers, screened by light infantry at an approximately 2:1 ratio, with investment in fireballs and other magic approximately equal to the investment in light infantry.

Comments

So, it looks like there's an assumption being made in your Demographics that I was worrying about last night when trying to apply it to a settlement that I'm developing: that assumption that it's uniformly applicable across various scales.

If the Demographics of Heroism says that 1/5000 people is 5th level, or 1/12 is 1st, why is that also the frequency we'll find them in the army at? Wouldn't classed characters disproportionately end up in the military and other adventuring-type occupations? So my town of 3000 people may have 250 1st level inhabitants, but the 300-person military would have more than 25 1st level soldiers, because there's more call for them there than as farmers... Similarly, there might be 25 people with religious occupations, there wouldn't just be 2 1st-level clerics and a bunch of 0-level acolytes? The 50-man mercenary band would have more than 4 1st-level fighters?

First off, as in Basic D&D and AD&D, most men-at-arms are 0-level normal men. With that in mind, imagine a typical feudal army. The "army" is itself a pyramid where a manorial lord has a few knights, who in turn have some sergeants-at-arms, who in turn have some men-at-arms. A 100-man warband might include 80 0-level men (men-at-arms), 8 1st level fighters (sergeants-at-arms) 3 2nd level fighters (knights), and 1 3rd level fighter (the local manorial lord). 5 of these warbands might work for a 5th level baron.

If you assume mages and clerics are distributed along similarly feudal lines, then you would assume that the 5th level baron, with about 500 men (5 3rd level fighters' warbands) probably has a 3rd or 4th level mage as his court wizard and a 3rd or 4th level cleric as his chaplain. When he goes to war against the neighboring baron, those are the forces they are pitting against each other.

So that's the baseline for envisioning the average conflict.

Now, if we imagine a period of Total War in a society, in which all of the classed characters could be recruited into the war -- of, say, 6MM people, there could be (1 in 12) about 500,000 classed characters which form an elite army. Of these, 1 in 50, or 10,000 will be 5th level or above, and 10% of those will be mages, so you'll have 1,000 mages capable of hurling fireballs. So that's 1,000/500,000 or 1 in 500, or 10x the frequency that would appear in everyday life.

But it's hard to imagine a period of total war in which ALL of the classed characters are recruited, that doesn't have some sort of vast Levee En Masse that recruits a huge number of un-leveled characters - as cannon fodder to absorb those fireballs, if nothing else! 0 level characters are valuable because they are only minimally worse than 1st level, while being much more widely available. Moreover, some of the leveled characters will have "aged out" of adventuring, being retired, wounded, etc. Their level doesn't necessarily speak to their current fitness for the rigors of army life.

That said, there can and will of course be areas which are "thick" with higher level characters. Such places, units, countries, regions, etc., will be considered HIGHLY dangerous and threatening. A small barony run by a 14th level mage would be like North Korea with Hydrogen Bombs... small, but terrifying.

There's also the cost to consider. A leveled character will expect an exponentially higher retainer cost per month (based on their level) than say a 6gp Level 0 Light Infantryman. I think that really helps to explain why every army doesn't just field every wizard in the land.

If one looks back to CHAINMAIL and it's use of the wizard, there was an error converting the area effect of the fireball into d&d. The large catapult had an area effect of 3 1/2" but this was siege/man to man scale, there was no "mass combat" scale for the catapult.

One way to reign in the effect of spells is to not make adjustments from outdoor to indoor scale.

Are you planning on having the fireball have a 30 yard radius? Chainmail's actual radius was 3 yards (a generous are of effect for a 1 foot diameter catapult rock.

The wizard in chainmails job was really three fold, chase off dragons, dispatch other hero units, knock down castle walls--it reall wasn't about obliterating hundreds of 0-level mooks (neither was this the dragons job for the same reason).

My only fear is that give their "point cost" wizards with 30 yard diameter fireballs cause too many problems needlessly.

I've got a post covering this with Matthew over on the odd74 boards in the Chainmail section titled "catapults, canons, and aquerbus". Also, delta at deltasdnd.blogspot.com has two recent posts on the subject with my replies in the comment section.

At present, fireballs in ACKS have a 20-foot radius. Based on your notes above, we'll downsize them to a 10-foot radius. That leaves them at a much better size!

Within my own campaign, I have made no secret about my frustration with over-sized fireballs -- too large for dungeoneering, overly powerful on the battlefield. My only reason for not down-sizing them was respect for the Chainmail legacy.

The lighting bolt as well should only be about 3/4" yard wide and 6 yards long. The ranges were in mass combat scale (240 yards) but the area of effects were not--just like catapults.

the light catapult was 2" which is 6 feet, the wizard used the heavy catapult of 3 1/2" which comes to 10 1/2 feet across.

Since CHAINMAIL had an optional rule for spell range starting at 24" for seers and over 60" (600 yards) for wizards, perhaps fireball could begin at 5 feet in diameter at 5th level and then double to 10 feet at name level perhaps?

On the subject of spells and mass combat, your version of haste isn't useful for mass combat, perhaps a variant haste spell that simply doubles the movement rate of 20 men or so (keeping the aging so as to keep wizards scary to normal men) without the increased attack. Call it 'forceful march' or something.

The combined arms approach embodied in mad anthony Waynes legion organization would defiently prove more flexible in handling armies with wizards and dragons than the more monolithic divisional organization in the contemporary armies of France, I would think. Maurice De Saxes' Reveries might also provide some inspiration. The organization scheme he advocated was theoretical, and drawn from the Roman example, but along much the same lines.

Fireballs in OD&D and Swords and spell were 20' Radius - 40 feet across. Arneson commented on ODD74 forum however that he allowed smaller ones if that is what the caster wanted.

Arneson's original method of employing them can be found in his 1973 draft of the D&D rules and is as follows: "... the accuracy will vary with the distance of the intended target. Targets within 50 feet can be hit with 99% accuracy, at 55 feet 95%, accuracy, and the accuracy decreases a t 5% per every 10 feet." (Glossary of Terms, p. 20)

Daniel - The Legion of the US is really interesting! I hadn't been familiar with it before. Thanks for sharing it.

So Daniel/Bargle, am I to understand the timeline went like this:
1) Chainmail Fireball - 10' radius (catapult sized), hit based on player estimating range and angle
2) Arneson Fireball - 20' radius, % chance to hit based on range
3) D&D Fireball - 20' radius, always hits
In other words with each iteration, fireball got more and more powerful.

Well... was trying to avoid a CHAINMAIL argument with Cooper/Bargle, but the "error" he mentions is a bit far fetched. There is no "siege/man to man" scale in CHAINMAIL. Scale in CHAINMAIL is 1"=10 Yards. There is a note in the Man to Man section on misile weapons saying "Ranges for each weapon are divided into thirds for simplicity" - applying to weapons for which only a single maximum range had been given in the mass combat section. It doesn't apply to catapults, only bows and such. Nothing is said about changing the area of effect and certainly nothing about altering siege warfare or any other scales in the game.

D&D rescales Yards to feet, such that 1"=10 feet, thus a fireball has an area of effect of 35 feet. Gygax simply rounded that to 40, he didn't make "errors" converting his own stats, it is simply what he intended and Arneson agreed with. Coopers' point about there being 10 or twenty catapults represented in a single catapult unit is not relevent, since the single wizard is equal to the unit, whatever it's size.

2) and 3) should probably be reversed. The detials in Arneson manuscript suggest very strongly that it is the final version he was preparing when Gygax published the Lake geneva draft that Dave complained was "not right". So I think Dave was trying to curb the "always hitting" rule. I used a variation of the chance to hit rule in D@D. (and CoZ), but in dungeons, it rarely comes into play.

2) catapult and bombard rules are not in the mass combat section of CM, the are in the missile fire section of CM and in no less than 3 instances refer the reader to the siege/man to man section. Catapults were not used in mass combat; in real life, or in CM.

since the catapult was for use in man to man siege, one must ask themselves, given that 1 figure represents 1 man (let's say a 5/8" miniature represents 1 man wielding a sword as S&S informs us) how man many ca be hit with a 3 1/2" catapult? 3 or 4? Or 30 or 40?

Furthermore! (all in good spirits Daniel!) using miniatures must inform us about effects. Ad&d spacing in a dungeon (4 men abreast with spears, 2 with swords, etc) comes directly from the basing figures from s&s. A man with a spear uses a base of 3/4". This gives 4 men in a 10 foot dungeon corridor. 1" was 1 yard in man to man scale, otherwise--using figures the rules would not allow more than single file fighting in a standard 10' dungeon c

Of course using different sized miniatures changed the area of effects and numbers of men effected.

CM has a man on a 30mm or 54mm base. I believe it was all codified in swords and spells as men on a 5/8" inch base, but look at the size of creatures and look at their area of effect. A wizards fireball of 3 1/2" cannot effect that many heroes in man to man combat if the hero is on any one of those bases.

And lastly. Te very idea of indoor and outdoor scale comes directly from chainmails mass combat/man to man scale. D&D combined and mixed all scales in a mash (12" but indoors it's at a snails pace, 1" 10 feet but three 5/8ths bases can fit in a 10 foot corridor, etc).

So, man scale was *something* but d&d just mashed it all up 10 yards 10 feet and 3 feet. It's as much a mess as the economy. Best to have--like CHAINMAIL, multiple rounds of melee per 1 minute turn, but movement rates and scales that match. Which means that if a 5/8th base of 10 men move 120" yards in 1 min. Than a single 5/8" man moves 12 yards in 6 seconds and wizards cast 1 spell per minute.

Then you can zoom in and out of the battle field--from man to men without continuity problems.

The best example is giants and thrown rocks in 0d&d itself referencing CM.

here's some more interesting information.

1 cubic foot of stone is roughly 150 lbs. A boulder 10' in diameter would weight roughly 25,000 lbs. No giant is going to do anything like throw that 200'. A giant throws a rock with a light catapult ( 2" area of damage according to 0d&d as informed by CHAINMAIL). The potential targets hit cannot be more than anyone standing withing 6 feet of the missile, it certainly cannot be 20 foot radius of foes.

The size of stones of roman catapults:

Quote:
When the torsion principle was perfected, it became possible to fire a stone weighting as much as 78 kilograms. Indeed, the Roman military engineer Vitruvius gives dimensions for catapults firing stones as heavy as 162 kilograms, although such giant machines may never have been actually constructed. More typical machines fired balls weighing from 13 to 26 kilograms.

The average size and range of a catapult missile: "The longest recorded range for a catapult firing an arrow of the ordinary size, about 70 centimeters, was about 640 meters, and there is some reason to believe the claim was not inflated."

The largest Bombard in the world Was the "tzar's cannon" in red square which is about 2 1/2" feet in diameter.

So, in CHAINMAIL a small catapult is 2' feet across and a large is 3 1/2' which is quite generous for a damage area.

hmmm...pg. 60 and 121 of the reformatted 0d&d reference a "sling ended" catapult which fires in a "shotgun like" formation, presumably of multiple rocks. *Only* those have a area of 2" and 3 1/2".

This is area and not radius whatever that means. Presumably then, the boulders thrown by giants (1-2 foot diameter at most) then were single target missile weapons and could not damage multiple creatures.

Interesting! This was not mentioned in CM, I feel as if this is a retcon of sorts so as to account for the size of catapult shots referenced in CM. As 3 1/2" only works in 1" 1 yard scale and there was no way to keep the area of damage at 2" and 3 1/2" in the 1" 10 foot scale. So a "sling ended"catapult has a damage area of 20 feet or 20 yards outdoors...laughable.

Indeed, giants missile fire effects only one target and is not "sling ended" and the sling ended option is not available in CHAINMAIL.

First, base size is irrelevant in CM, because the rules were written to accomodate whatever fiigures you had - thus the 1" melee distance and 3" melee range. Gygax mentioned using all sorts of figures in his battles, including plastic toy monsters from the 5 and dime.

Second "catapults" in CM (and in the '60' and '70's generally) is used as a generic term to include any kind of large mechanical missle hurling device. Finer distinctions like trebuche and ballista etc, were not being made, no more than they were for the variety of Cannon. This is why Gygax notes the use of different types of shot (shotgun and dart) in Underworld and Wilderness Adventures (p27). Your misunderstanding here may be why you made the claim that catapults were only employed in sieges. Of course, that is not true, there are many types of catapults employed in field battles - the Romans and Byzantines loved to use them.

Third, I'm sorry coop, but you are not going to convince me that there is a special hidden and completely unmentioned scale for area of effect in CHAINMAIL.

Forth - Fireballs in OD&D have a RADIUS of 20' - that's a 40 foot circle area of effect.

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Well, gygaxian clearly lists base size for the fantasy supplement, and most fantastic creatures outside of elves, orcs, goblins (anything with a 30-300 # appearing in d&d) were extensions of the man to man game.

If you look at the "leader" from the man to man write up you see much of the same language as the hero, army commander shares much with the super hero, wizard is a single catapult, dragon a single creature--magic swords and armor are specifically referenced to man to man combat.

The fantasy supplement in part allows you to run eowen and the nazgul, beorn and bolg. The wizards fireball chases off a *single dragon* not a flight of 20, likewise the dragons breath is designed for roasting 1:1 figures and gygax's rules for how many people can stand shoulder to shoulder in a dungeon (the man to man game) is derived from a 1" 1 yard formula taking the basing structures from s&s.

So, if a single giant throws a rock at a single wizard on a 5/8" base, how big of an area effect is his 2" rock?

In swords and spells, gygax recommended 5/8" figure of men, orcs, elves and dwarves at 10 men to 10 yards. This would give us a man taking up 5/8" of 1 yard (3 feet) or 22.5 inches for a man wielding a small or thrusting weapon like a short sword or spear. A long sword requires a 3/4" base as does slightly larger than man sized creatures (bugbear or lion), so our elf armed with a longsword takes up 27 inches or just over 2 feet to fight properly.

So 4 elves armed with longswords or 5 elves armed with spears or short swords can fight in a 10' corridor.

However! this only applies to fighting in formation with like troops. An open attack order requires 3 feet (1") between allies which would give us 2 elves armed with longswords or daggers could fight side by side.

It looks like gygax split the difference between 4 and 2 and pretty much just say 3 abreast down a 10' dungeon corridor.

Nobody expects a fireball to turn into a neutron bomb just because you're on the wilderness exploration map, do they? Why is the dungeon 'exploration' map any different? The person gary put in charge of writing up the PHB volume was wrong. No where does the fireball description say 20 feet, or 20 yards, it simply says 2". And in combat, gary says the game table is 1" = 3 feet.

Combat is not done on the 1" = 10 feet map grid. That map is for exploration only.

I solved the Fireball vs Medieval Tactics issue in my 1e Yggsburgh game by not having it be a common spell. Easy to do in 1e thanks to the various restrictions it places on M-U spell acquisition, plus the culture restricts access to offensive magic due to sensible fear of out-of-control wizards.

I was wondering if this kind of slight tweak is easy in ACKS, or does it hardcode in routine fireballing?

I was debating getting ACK, but seeing that its tactical system assumes too little abstraction and too much miniature-battle mechanics, I guess I will pass on it. I am not trying to rant here, but just offering some insight why I, for one, am not buying the game. If there is ever going to be an option for those of us who desire a more abstracted battle system (Birthright did that brilliantly), I will be glad to reconsider.

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“This book is a great addition to the ACKS system, as well as any OSR game, for much of the material in here could be easily ported to another game of choice. If you are running ACKS, this book will help tailor make the system to your world. If you are on the fence about ACKS, check this book out. Its flexibility and substance just might make you a convert.”

“What struck me in the read through is how to use Dwimmermount as an example - a how-to on presenting a themed dungeon or campaign world...It is a font of ideas - not only setting ideas, but presentation and preparatory ideas, not only for someone who would want to create their own dungeon, but for someone just setting up a sandbox environment, and wanting some structure to hang hexes up on...All of this, then, for $10.00; a madly underpriced PDF for what you're getting out of it, especially as compared to other megadungeon products. Take it as it is and you'll enjoy it just as much as if you dismantle it first; either way you're getting real value.”

“The campaign chapter also contains a bunch of amusing rules for magical research – not only can you create your own spells, but you can also cross-breed monsters and turn yourself into a lich! Perhaps the best part, though, is the conceit that wizards can build dungeons somewhere (probably not directly under their tower), wait for monsters to settle inside, and then send adventurers inside to harvest their parts. It sounds tremendously inefficient both for the PC (hoping you get a sufficiently interesting creature!) and the player (dungeons get stocked by making wandering monster roll…after roll…after roll).”

“...not a lot of people are talking about the combination of the fighter damage bonus with the cleave rule. That’s a huge deal that makes fighters more the premier class of the game– especially when you take in all the things done to dial back the mages”

“It makes good on D&D's largely unfulfilled promise to take characters from lowly insignificance to the heights of power. There are rules for building castles, establishing and ruling domains (as well as wizard's sanctums and thieves guilds), and trading -- just about anything a high-level, power-hungry fantasy character might be interested in pursuing. Adventurer, Conqueror, King is a very cleverly designed game whose rules are quite compatible with most retro-clones, particularly Labyrinth Lord, making it extremely valuable to any player or referee looking to add any of its rules to their existing campaigns. This is good stuff and well worth a look.”

“Autarch has created a lens with Domains At War. This finely crafted piece allows you to view mass combat within your game. It is up to you to focus the lens, choosing when to pull back and see the whole of a war campaign and when to zoom into a single battle. The rules of D@W work seamlessly, allowing a group to flow back and forth between both rule sets as the story of the game and their interest demands. If you are looking for a rule set for a d20 game that abstracts mass combat in a fun, simple way, while still providing players influential choices, check out D@W”

“If the history of wargaming is the Sun, Domains At War: Battles is that point of light you get after focusing what's good about wargaming through the lens of DND. It's quick, flexible, and dead simple to pick up for anyone that's rolled dice with purpose...If you are not running ACKS, or you're not in an ACKS game that's putting any emphasis on domain management, this (Domains At War:Campaigns) still has a lot of use for you - if you ever want your game to feature war as a backdrop, or have the PCs interact within that war, or your players have ever wanted to take a mass of henchmen and mercenaries to a robber knight's keep - and you want that war and those battles to be as simulated as the PCs actions are - if you want it to be gamed and real, you still want this book.”

“I think its safe to say that I have never seen a set of rules and guidelines for stronghold and dominion management in any other D&D game (or even any other game remotely similar to D&D) that were this complete. The mechanics in the BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia books pale in comparison. Even Pendragon, which probably has the most detailed rules on manors that I’d seen systematized until now, doesn’t really match up. You get complete rules for just what kind of stronghold each class can make, how many followers it will attract, what every little bit of it will cost, how many peasant families you can attract and support, and what kind of revenue you can collect. On top of that you get rules for how to expand your domain, what kind of various expenses are involved on a regular basis, rules and tables for being a vassal of a lord or king, morale rules for your dominion to see if the peasants are revolting, rules for building and running villages, towns and cities, and building and managing markets.”

“The Sinister Stone of Sakkara succeeds in it's goals as an introductory module, and serves as a great example of what today's authors are doing with the concepts introduced some 40 years ago by the original team. For new players, what most folks think of as cornerstones of "old school" play - faction dynamics, multi-path dungeons, resource management & logistics, are all introduced within the two levels of the titular dungeon. Interacting with monstrous or human NPCs in a non-combat function is well rewarded, exploration delivers results, and the "solving" of the dungeon; with secret doors, traps, and treasure extraction all in play, is baked in. ... the whole thing serves as an example of what can be accomplished with Chapter 10 of ACKS. New and experienced Judges will find this example invaluable. ”

“'Matthew Skail, the dungeon designer [The Sinister Stone of Sakkara], really instills a sense of cumulative horror as the creepy images and icons found in the upper level are revealed to be more than just artwork later on', states Alexander Macris. 'Some of what’s in the lower level is horrific enough that Raggi would be proud.'”

“The Player's Companion extends the core rules by adding a series of new classes, the dwarven machinist and spelunker, the elven ranger, and some human classes - mystic (monk), shaman (druid), and priestess. I'll come out and say it though, the thing that got me fired up with the book-love was the extensive list of templates. (I think they claim there are 144 of them). An ACKS template is basically some pre-selected options that speeds up character generation and gives the character a bit of early flavor. ACKS supports the old school roll-and-go - it's got basic 3d6 in order for abilities and simple classes, like classic D&D. The templates take it the rest of the way, by adding a preconfigured set of starting equipment, starting money, and suggested proficiency selections.”

“This is what a rationalised 21st century dungeoncrawling RPG can look like: enough old school aspects to appeal to grognards, but with enough mechanical crunch to appeal to new(er) school players. The systems maths is robust enough that it doesn't fall to pieces if you breathe on it, but simple enough that you only need to do simple-addition-up-to-20 in play. And we did it crowdfunded and with substantiative fan base interaction and customer feedback.”

“If you run anything even marginally compatible with B/X, or based on the original through 2nd editions of the paternal game, you can take advantage of this book (Player's Companon). There's dozens of little $1 Labyrinth Lord classes or extended spellbooks spread around RPGNow - this is all of them, and more.”

“...The Sinister Stone of Sakkara is more embedded within its setting (the Auran Empire) than The Keep on the Borderlands ever was. B2 was released before there even was an official setting for D&D (that came with X1 The Isle of Dread). Nowadays game consumers seem to prefer more flavored, setting-based content. So whereas the Keep was led by The Castellan, Türos Tem is led by Legate Ulrand Valerian...”

“Adventurer Conqueror King adds a new wing to the Old School with its epic-scale world construction rules, which help the Judge develop an entire setting, logically and organically, in the sandbox spirit of the hobby's earliest campaigns.”

— Allen Varney

“I will also make a note that Domains at War is my favorite RPG purchase since I bought the ACKS books in the first place. On a recent reread I was struck by suddenly realizing the formula for maximum spell damage being dealt to a unit is based on what percentage of the unit the spell's area of effect can cover. I had to stop reading for a few minutes while I admired it.”

— Aryxymaraki

“This is a pretty damn impressive set of tools that allows a dungeon master to create, demo, and craft Dwimmermount into their campaign back drop, and as a of a damn fine science fantasy campaign that they'll want to run.”

“To sum it up, Dwimmermount is a well-written, information-dense, traditional megadungeon with hints of science fantasy, designed to facilitate a game based around exploration and discovery. The tools and information presented inside this huge tome are aimed at helping achieve this goal; and with success, I must say.”

“This game (Domains At War: Battles) does for mass combat what Steve Jackson did for tactical combat with Melee and Wizard. Even better, the basic system of armor class, hit points, and d20 to-hit rolls will be immediately recognizable to most role-players. It’s great that people that could never be convinced to sit down to a game of Commands & Colors or Dragon Rage will play this, but the fact that it provides a context for martial characters with high levels of Wisdom and Charisma to really make a difference totally seals the deal. This is something I’ve wanted for a long time even if I didn’t quite know it and it addresses a wealth of design issues that emerge in many of the older role playing games. This is a very big deal, an achievement on par with the development of playable megadungeons.”

“What does this offer that the OSR books and rules already in your collection don't? Strongholds, domains, and even mercantile ventures are addressed. Yes, your character may just outgrow the dungeon life. If you play in any fantasy type RPG and are interested in building your own campaign, many of the tools are here.”

“I have greatly enjoyed reading through my copy of the book. The world of Dwimmermount is called Telluria, and the lore and history of the setting are tied inextricably with the history for the megadungeon. There are many oddities to the dungeon that appealed to me, and every level is designed consistently with the history that is provided.”